THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: Tom on 02 Feb 2008, 13:42
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(http://thevoidstuff.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/making_money_paul_kidby.jpg)
Discuss his awesomeness....NOW!
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what's to discuss about it?
he's awesome!
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precisely
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Best Disc character in a very long time.
Both his books so far have been 100% gold*.
*That is A Pune, or Play On Words.
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I must say, he is probably the best new character in a while all right. Not quite Vimes, but seeing as Vimes is by far my favourite, that's a compliment. I think that in general Pratchett had been getting better recently. Night Watch is in my opinion the best Discworld book by a mile, and zerodrone is right, the two Moist books have been excellent.
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It's funny, while I also thought Night Watch was amazing, in general I'm not that much of a Vimes fan, especially lately when there's all that "struggling with The Beast" stuff going on. As far as major protagonists go, I'd really much rather see another Granny Weatherwax book before another Watch book (though, IIRC, Pratchett has "retired" the Witches, because "nothing can stand up to Granny").
Discworld also needs more Susan.
The next adult Disc book is presumably going to be Unseen Academicals, which is about football at Unseen U. Sounds like a funny premise, but I'm worried it will be a bit too light-hearted, and it will delay the writing of Raising Taxes. Hopefully Pterry won't start getting sicker any time too soon. :-(
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I always forget about The Fifth Elephant whenever I think of the Watch books. I never really liked the Witches that much compared to the others, to be honest. (Which, given that they're Pratchett books, still means that I like them more than most other books...)
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I had a friend who reported lots of bad things about Going Postal and Making Money. Which was convenient, actually; now I know not to ask their advice on anything important.
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Going Postal, Making Money, and The Truth were the books that alerted me to the fact that Discworld books are even better now than they were when I started reading them. Terry Pratchett has literally only gotten better with time, and the books he's written about the development of Ankh-Morpork as a modern city are the best examples of this. I don't think anyone has ever done anachronism as well.
Good call, Whipstitch.
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I loved The Truth.
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I started reading Pratchett via Going Postal, and I loved it.
I was really hoping there was more Lipwig books. Good to see there are.
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Ach! I'm still waiting for this book to go into soft cover.
I never borrow books, I buy them. Which means I buy two or three a week. A rather expensive addiction. Sadly I also prefer most of my books to match the series, so if I didn't buy the first in hard cover, I can't buy any of the others in hard cover.
I started reading Pratchett 13 years ago at the start of the series, and agree he only gets better (with the exeption of Maskerade and Lords and Ladies).
Hazzah for the return of Moist!
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Wait, what? Lords and Ladies is one of my top 5, maybe even top 3 Disc books? What's not to like about it? The whole Granny/Ridcully story, the Elves were great villains, Magrat's marriage antics...) I've only read maybe 10 of the Disc books more than once and it's one of them.
I also recall enjoying Maskerade.
I'd say the weak links in the chain are The Last Continent (Australia = LOL), Soul Music (something just was "off" with it) and Monstrous Regiment (not a bad novel, but had almost nothing to do with the Disc series and was too depressing; I don't think I laughed even once).
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I need to get back into discworld (not physically, of course).
What is this new making money one? I liked the truth a lot...
And going postal was excellent. I do like the old witch ones though..And the wizard ones too.
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I like Monstrous Regiment a lot more than Equal Rites because it deftly satirised Joan of Arc, WWI and the Napoleonic Wars and because it deftly handled feminism, gender equality and crossdressing in wartime.
The Discworld series has been getting much better over the latter part of the 90's and now. I'm really glad that Pratchett has avoided using Rincewind again. Some more Susan books would be very welcome but as everything stands we should just enjoy whatever he has offer us.
But seriously, if you like Pratchett you might get a kick out of Jasper Fforde.
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I was never really a big rincewind fan either.. But granny weatherwax and Nanny Ogg should make a comeback. They were my favourite characters.
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But granny weatherwax and Nanny Ogg should make a comeback.
I ATEN'T DEAD.
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Though the Last Continents jokes were somewhat predictable, it was still an enjoyable book. Really, the only discworld book I consider notably weak is Equal Rites, but he was still getting into his stride then: trying to find the transition between what could easily have been a one-off piss-take of Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard and HP Lovecraft (The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic, books which almost fit in better next to his comic sci-fi works like Dark Side of the Sun and Strata than they do the rest of the Discworld books) and the post-modern satire slash social commentary of the rest of the series. Mort is when the Discworld really comes into being, for me. Wyrd Sisters makes a much better introduction to the Witches anyway. There are variations in quality throughout the rest of course. I'd say my top five were probably Wyrd Sisters, Hogfather, Guards! Guards!, Mort and Jingo!, for a variety of reasons. The best thing about the Discworld books overall, though, was reading everything up till Carpe Jugulum when I was 11 or so, then re-reading them all again recently, now much more widely knowledgeable and better read. Reading the Discworld books at different comic levels is like reading two whole different series. The first time round I didn't get jokes like, for example 'Llamedos', or any of the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert jokes in The Last Continent.
I love Rincewind, actually. One reason to look forward to Unseen Academicals, for me, is his return. (For those not following the entire Discworld continuity, Rincewinds story has been continuing in the Science of Discworld books, and he is now permanently tenured at Unseen University as the Egregious Proffessor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, Assistant Librarian and Health and Safety Officer, among other things).
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Damn, I gotta get all my Discworld books back down from the attic and read them.
I'd say my favourite would be...Hmmm...I have no idea actually. I think the first couple with granny weatherwax pwned.
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Mort is when the Discworld really comes into being, for me
Absolutely, it was the first Disc book that really emotionally moved me. The final confrontation at the end was amazingly handled, and I think it was Terry Gilliam who once said that it would make a great film.
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Mort was the first one I read.
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A novel revealing the true mysteries of Vetinari would be epic. He is such a good character.
I wonder if PTerry will make a conscious effort to address the various "destined to happen" events we've seen? As in, Vetinari's death, Angua's death, etc.
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That would be cool, but it would detract from the whole mystery of his character.
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Well shit, if I had known Equal Rites was bad, I wouldn't have gotten just last night.
Thanks for the heads up, QC forums. Geez.
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That's the thing though, it's not bad. It's just not as good as the others.
Rincewind, Death, The Nac Mac Feegle, Vimes and Lu Tse are my favourite characters I think. I adore The Luggage as well.
I need to find a bookstore around here that sells discworld maps, I'd really like to put a couple on my wall.
Some of the best books thus far I think would be the science series.
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Well shit, if I had known Equal Rites was bad, I wouldn't have gotten just last night.
Thanks for the heads up, QC forums. Geez.
Goddamnit I LIKE equal rites.
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I haven't read the science ones.
Well shit, if I had known Equal Rites was bad, I wouldn't have gotten just last night.
Equal Rites is a good book, of his discworld novels that mostly deal with fantasy cliches it's one of the better ones.
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I think that Death is the best character, followed closely by Vimes and Vetinari.
What would happen if Vetinari and Granny got in a confrontation? I would want to be on the back of A'tuin when that happened, hiding under one of the elephants.
I liked Monstrous Regiment, as well as the Night Watch ones, I think it is just the somewhat cynical humor that I like.
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They'd come to a compromise. The very idea of being unreasonable is contrary to their very natures... which is exactly why they're the most dangerous people on the Disc.
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What would happen if Vetinari and Granny got in a confrontation?
It would be the best scene in any Disc novel ever, probably.
They're both Grand Masters of Headology, after all.
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Man, I love the Moist Von Lipvig books, I think by Thud, it seemed like Pratchett was leaning maybe a little too heavily on Vimes, and he'd become as Vimes as he could be, and I much preferred him taking on background roles as a highly influential civic leader like he did in Monsterous Regiment, which I loved to death.
With that said, I too would like to see another Susan book, I always like her because she's never quite the main character, but she carries so much weight in the plot that she's still a joy to read about.
Also I didn't even know there was a new Lipvig book. I mean I should have seen it coming, Pratchett seems to like the idea of introducing the concept of the next book into the very ending of the previous one, but I never really thought too much about it. He's definately the best new character to be introduced to the Discworld in a while, just fantastic in every way.
Also am I alone in thinking Jingo is the best Vimes novel? Nightwatch is close, but Jingo gets me on so many levels.
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Thud! gets to me a lot more than Jingo.
I reckon that it may have something to do with the widening social rifts between Islamic and western cultures left in the wake of 9/11 and current events onward.
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I think that if Pratchet can continue writing despite his altzhiemers I think he will have to abandon almost all of the long running series. Everyone has basically become too powerful, Susan is, presumably, in a serious relationship with Time incarnate, the watch has gotten so all encompassing that there are very few crimes that can not be solved with ease, add to that two of the long running issues of the series were solved in Thud! (Vimes' own distaste for vampires and the trolls and dwarfs ethnic war)
I really hope I'm wrong as they're my two favorite series.
I think it's a shame that Lady Lajeen (Thief of Time) was killed, she could have continued to be a very interesting character.
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Oh, I am sure that he can think of more problems to solve. The auditors are still out there, and he can always introduce new locales and objects with the same characters.
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I am hoping against hope for some kind of "sequel" to Small Gods; ie another novel that deals with Omnia's relationship with the rest of the Disc.
Because the thing is, while I certainly agree that the books in general just keep getting better, I don't much like the fact that basically every single one is about Ankh-Morpork now. Interesting Times was so, well, interesting because it actually introduced a whole new setting.
And I really think Lancre is just too much fun to leave alone entirely.
Plus, I would really love another book which actually features the Gods of the Disc as characters (Fate, The Lady, Offler, etc) and how they're reacting to all this "technology" which will ultimately kind of phase them out.
I also think that Ephebe (that's the "Greek" one with all the math and a slave system that is more humane than the "free labor" market, right?) was underused and deserves some more screen time.
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I think it's a shame that Lady Lajeen (Thief of Time) was killed, she could have continued to be a very interesting character.
Honestly, the way she died, it seemed to be she had pretty much jumped on a wheel of death and rebirth and I was looking forward to seeing her again, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.
Theres a few locales that haven't really been used very much at all apart from as occasional settings for a paragraph or two in a book, like Hwondwanaland, and Ephebe and Tsort, and I'd like to see them used, but I mean, between Ankh-Morpork, and Lancre, theres more than enough stories in those places.
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The watch goes to lance, maybe? Or how about to where the sun doesn't shine?
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You mean that deep valley up near Slice?
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One of these days I really need to get around to reading the non-adult Disc books. I hear the Tiffany Aching ones are very good.
Also, I just now realised I have still never managed to read The Last Hero, which would make it only the third Disc book I've read out of order (the other two being Equal Rites, which for some reason I didn't read until somewhere around Guards! Guards!, and Eric, which I tihnk I read around when Soul Music came out).
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Yes, the Tiffany Aching books are good. I have read the first two.
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Moist is great. I hope we get to see more of him.
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He is a great character, yes. The only thing I don't like is how successful he is. In 'going postal', everything just went right for him, whilst with the vime books- the 5th elephant for example, he got put in jail and was chased through a forest naked.
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Well, I think that's the point of Moist - he's a "charmed" character, kind of the opposite of Rincewind. The fact that everything ends up going right for him - even accidentally, or without him even planning it - is, I think, the point of the character. He's the Disc equivalent of the traditional "trickster" character - Coyote in Native American lore, Bugs Bunny in modern American lore.
What I loved most about Going Postal was that it seemed like PTerry was intentionally making it "Citizen Kane"-ish, with all the witty newspaper interviews and manic pacing. My favorite part was probably when he's on the horse near the end, being interviewed, and yells out to Adora - "Will you marry me?" and she says "Not yet." Classic.
Speaking of which, Adora is almost as awesome as Moist himself.
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OMG, adora vs susan face off. Who would win?...
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Better yet, Adora vs. Vetinari. Which could conceivably happen in a future Moist book.
I wonder if we'll ever see Vetinari's vampire sweetheart again?
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I might get the discworld map.
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This is pretty freakin' awesome. (http://www.unseensoft.com/Pratchettes/index.html)
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I got the discworld map. It's good but it is a wee bitty over priced i reckon. I can't remember how much it cost but i remember thinking i really should have just got another book.
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Or I could just buy another book. Making Money sounds good.
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OMG, adora vs susan face off. Who would win?...
Cut this out before you start writing slash.
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So, say I have never read Discworld. Is the first book the place to start?
(I ask because I know they aren't all explicitly connected.)
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OMG, adora vs susan face off. Who would win?...
Cut this out before you start writing slash.
I didn't mean that kind of face off.
:|
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Personally I tend to advise people to read "Thief of Time" first but that's because it's gotten the most consistently good responses from the widest audience, in my experience. "Guards! Guards!" is also a good spot because it kicks off one of the best sets of characters in the series. I think that as you go back farther into his career chronologically, his jokes get more and more dry and British, and his references get less and less recognizable. I'd recommend "Thief of Time," "The Truth," "Guards! Guards!," "Pyramids," or "Mort," which is an older one but definitely really really good.
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I was never a big fan of Pyramids, but the others I agree with. My first was Hogfather, which is new enough to make sense (20). Mort isn't a good first book in my opinion, but it is good when you want to start reading the series that's about Death- the character.
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I started off reading "Guards Guards" and that got me hooked. Although starting off at the start would be a good idea as the first couple of books with rincewind are brilliant.
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Yes, zero, that is awesome. I like some of the quotes from him that I have never been able to find online, I think I will download that thing.
The quote on weapons from the fifth elephant, especially.
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I feel like we'll be getting something fun with Nation, which will hopefully be something he will be able to finish. I truly hope he doesn't go away for a while, unlike Robert Jordan, who left with his twelfth Wheel of Time book unwritten. Poor guy. Imagine spending your life on such a huge story, and not being able to finish it.
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I don't feel bad for Robert Jordan. He padded his books out to the point that literally nothing happened in the tenth book. He could have finished the series, he just chose to milk it and constantly throw in sideplots that even he knew would never be resolved.
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Yeah, no offense, but by book 7 I was dead certain that he was just fucking with us.
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The main virtue of the series later on was that they were good enough that I would continue reading them, and that they took up about a week each at the rate I read (about an hour before bed).
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kai so: There's this one Terry Pratchett book that I had ages and ages ago, and loved, but I've no idea where it is and no idea, at this point, what it was called. This is where helpful folks such as yourselves come in.
These are the things I can remember: it involved a race of hermaphrodites (possibly green?) and some sort of bio-regenerative technology, and a person being squeezed through a black hole the size of a dime. Or something like that.
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The only thing that I can think of that comes close to that is The Last Continent.
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It doesn't sound like a diskworld novel, try Strata or the Dark Side of the Sun, I've never read either of them so I'm not sure.
The only others it could be would be jonny and the dead, or jonny and the bomb, but I doubt it.
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Definitely not the Johnny books that I can remember.
Maybe Strata or Dark Side... I haven't read them in about ten years.
Incidentally, here an English friend of mine once got yelled at for getting lost while taking a short-cut, and walking through Terry Pratchett's property. He pulled up beside them in a black four-wheel drive. He was wearing a big, purple velvet hat and he had a live hawk on his arm.
Apparently he was quite nice once he realised they were lost.
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I started with the Rincewind books and never looked back*.
*Except later, when I re-read them.
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It might be strata, I don't think so though. Try dark side of the sun first.
I just got Making Money from the library today, haven't read it yet.
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It's Dark Side of the Sun.
I have the Discworld Map. And the map of Ankh Morpork. and Lancre. And Deaths Domain. And the cook book.
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I can't seem to find that stuff in any of the bookstores near me. I'll order it all online when I get more money, I guess.
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Your profile says you live in Maryland. Any bookstore should have dozens of Pratchett novels. Are you looking in the right section? They're usually in the "Fantasy/Sci-Fi" section.
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The books are easy to find. I'm talking about Khar's Maps and Cookbook.
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My local Waterstones has about a third of its sci-fi/fantasy section devoted to Pratchett. I own everything by Pratchett except the yearbooks, and several other ephemeral discworld things (both art books, both quiz books, etc.).
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It's Dark Side of the Sun.
Thanks! Definitely going to be buying a copy next time I drop buy a book store.
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Or I could just buy another book. Making Money sounds good.
I enjoyed it a lot.
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I got a second hand copy of the last hero from my old work for $.50, that's a quarter for those of you in the USSA.
How good is that?
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That is really good, but where do you live that your currency is less than the US dollar? I think even the yen is catching up to us.
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He lives in NZ. Their currency is pretty crappy because they insist on sticking to the sheep standard.
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Deepest darkest Nu Zild.
Yeah, second hand in reasonably good condition for a book that normally sells for $60 here... :D
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I was never a big fan of Pyramids, but the others I agree with. My first was Hogfather, which is new enough to make sense (20). Mort isn't a good first book in my opinion, but it is good when you want to start reading the series that's about Death- the character.
OMG, yes I adore Death. He's my favorite character! The swing-set and the tree... the rocking horse, the drinking the horizon and the blue sky <3 <3 <3
Hogfather was definitely a great read. It starts with Mort and then Reaperman... and I'm not sure which one of his is after that.
Pratchett's new book for Moist is coming out sometime this year right? Raising Taxes. I'm looking forward to it!
Oh, Good Omens is also an awesome read. Pratchett wrote it with Neil Gaiman, way back in the good ol' days.
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Death is a sexy beast.
I loved Good Omens. I liked how Death was simultaneously a somewhat darker character in that book yet still took the time to go feed some ducks.
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Pratchett's new book for Moist is coming out sometime this year right? Raising Taxes. I'm looking forward to it!
No, Nation is coming out this year (it is not a Disc book). The next Disc book he has talked about as having set notes down for is Unseen Academicals. So unless he has already finished Raising Taxes (doubtful, since Making Money is so recent) then it will likely not be out for another year or two.